NEW AUSTRALIAN HERO

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23740, 11 September 1942, Page 3

NEW AUSTRALIAN HERO

CAREER OF GENERAL CLOWES (0.C.) SYDNEY, September 4. The Australian victory at Milne Bay, Papua, has given Australia a new national hero in Major-General Cyril A. Clowes. Officers who know MajorGeneral Clowes describe him as “efficient, fearless, and determined.” One of those officers, now at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, said he was with Major-General Clowes in Greece. “I don’t think it would be possible to get him rattled,” said the officer. “He was always deadly calm. He was a particularly sound man. who hid his capabilities under a great reserve. He was never the bluff type. When the German mechanised forces broke through near the coast of Greece, it was Major-General Clowes whom General Blarney sent Jo review the whole situation. As a result of his recommendations, arrived at after a lightning inspection. the position was at least temporarily stabilised.” The officer then told a story of how, during the hottest part of the fight for the Servia Pass in the Greek campaign, the German artillery had got the range and was lobbing shells on the road. The officer decided to try to reach the head of the pass in his car and started on the hazardous journey, only to be stopped by a senior officer stationed halfway up the road. "You can’t take that up there,” said the senior officer laconically. “They’re shelling the road heavily. You might get hit. You’ll have to go on foot. We’re short of cars and we can’t afford to lose one.” The senior officer was Major-General C. A. Clowes. Now aged 50, Major-General Clowes had a brilliant, career at Duntroon Military College, Canberra, and was one of the outstanding graduates of 1914. After some years as major of artillery at Middle Head. Sydney, he was sent to attend the War College in England. A series of appointments to special artillery posts was followed in 1933 by appointment to command at Darwin, where he remained until 1936. For the next two years he was attached to the British Army in England. HO was promoted colonel a month before war began, and in October, 1939, he went to Egypt in command of the A.I.F. Corps Artillery with the rank of brigadier. He commanded the artillery of the Australian Corps in the Middle East and throughout the campaign ip Greece, for which he was awarded the Greek Military Cross. Ha returned to Australia in January as one of the first six brigadiers recalled to take up commands in the home army with the rank of major-general.